WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 171 



farmers, dissatisfied with trie profits they were making, 

 began to lay the blame on the railway companies, and the 

 latter sought, in or about the year 1896, to meet them by, 

 among other things, codifying a previously complicated 

 system of charges, and bringing the milk rates within a 

 mileage scale which works out thus, per imperial gallon : 



Up to 20 miles . . . . . . . . . . . . \d. 



Above 20 miles, and up to 40 miles . . . . . . f d. 



40 ,, 100 ,, . . . . id. 



100 ,, 150 ,, .. .. i^d. 



,, 150 miles, irrespective of distance . . . . i%d. 



Minimum charge, as for 12 imperial gallons per 

 consignment. 



Fractions of a gallon to be charged as a gallon for 

 each consignment. 



Fractions of id. to be charged as id. for each con- 

 signment. 



One effect of this revised scale of charges has been that 

 beyond 150 miles the distance from which the milk may come 

 makes no difference in the railway rate. The most distant 

 point from which milk has been brought to Euston is Toome, 

 in Ireland, a station on the Northern Counties Committee 

 (Midland) Railway, 513 miles from London. On the Great 

 Western Railway, 1,549 cans were brought to Paddington 

 during 1911 from St. Erth, Cornwall, 320 miles from London, 

 while there is a regular milk traffic on that line of railway 

 from places about 130 miles distant. The bulk of the milk 

 supply for London comes from farms within a radius of 

 from 40 to 100 miles, and would thus cost for rail transport 

 an average of one penny per gallon. 



In addition to putting their milk rates and charges on a 

 uniform basis, the leading companies greatly improved their 

 milk train services, opening branch lines for Sunday traffic, 

 constructing special milk vans on framework similar to that of 

 the best passenger rolling stock, concentrating milk from 

 specified districts at suitable junction stations, and carrying 

 it thence in special and often non-stop milk specials run at 

 a speed of over 40 miles an hour, and setting apart, more 

 especially at London stations, certain lines, with platform 

 and approach road, exclusively for milk traffic. 



